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How long will Facebook last?

Thunder

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I just heard that Facebook is worth more than giant Boeing. They are considering going public, so folks can buy into their big bucks.

But, how long can Facebook last? Aren't the chances high that something bigger and better will come out in 5 years or so?
 
my main concern is not that they will fail to last, but that they'll become too close to being a monopoly.
 
How's MySpace doing?

I don't see any reason why Facebook will avoid the same fate.
 
I think Facebook will last because of how its integrated itself into alot of peoples social lives. When I added my contacts from my old sim card to my new blackberry, it automatically found their photos from facebook and added the thumbnail to the contacts name. :eek: Cool,Huh? :cool:
 
Remember AOL. It got so big it bought Time Warner (merge with 55% AOL ownership). Then it failed to keep up with the times. Time Warner shrugged them off, user based down for 25M to 3M. AOL will maybe survive until their aged user-base dies out.

Facebook will have continually innovate to stay alive. That's hard for a big young company to do, but not impossible.
 
Thing is, Facebook has not been reporting revenues. They are a closely-held private company, and because they have a number of stockholders under a certain number, no SEC reporting is required.

And so, the valuation is based upon an opaque concern. I don't trust it. I saw the dot-com bubble burst, and this is likely to go the same way.

In the end, Google will win.
 
I think it will last for quite a few years. Companies are using it extensively, which will increase the chances of it's survival.
 
BenBurch said:
Thing is, Facebook has not been reporting revenues. They are a closely-held private company, and because they have a number of stockholders under a certain number, no SEC reporting is required.

And so, the valuation is based upon an opaque concern. I don't trust it. I saw the dot-com bubble burst, and this is likely to go the same way.
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This. The reason they haven't gone public yet is probably a combination of not needing the money (companies go public to be infused with cash, either for expansion/growth or greed) and being worth more in imagined potential than in reality.
 
WildCat said:
How's MySpace doing?

I don't see any reason why Facebook will avoid the same fate.
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In the very long run you're probably right, but the sheer number of people using Facebook means that it is very well entrenched, definitely more so than any social networking product like it has ever been before. Facebook isn't merely one website in a line of such websites, it's the winner in the fight between them to get a real critical mass of users.
 
My guess is that Facebook will become a bit player in its own market, like AOL did. Social networking will become almost part of the operating systems, so a one-stop-social-network-shop will be no more desireable than a one-stop-computer-network-shop was ~9 years ago, when AOL flopped.

Originally, AOL provided access to a lot of networked content, but the internet superceded AOL's content. So AOL became an internet portal, but there are a lot of internet portals and so AOL became just another ISP.

My guess is that history will repeat itself. Lots and lots of sites are trying to incorporate social networking (from Flickr to Battle.net, sheesh) - soon (and probably already) there will be free apps that work with a variety of social networking sites, and then it will become much less important what stuff you're putting on Facebook vs MySpace etc, just like it's not terribly important to others whether your ISP is SBC, ComCast, AOL, etc.

Just my 3 cents worth (I like to think I'm 1 cent better).

ETA: I'm trying to come up with a rationale for why Google's ongoing success isn't a good counterexample. I don't think it's a good counterexample, but I'm not sure I have a good reason why not. And that, of course, means that I may be wrong.
 
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Thunder said:
But, how long can Facebook last? Aren't the chances high that something bigger and better will come out in 5 years or so?
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Better, certainly.

Bigger, yep still room for growth.

Something else, not necessarily, as long as no laws prevent its operation. A nation that allows Facebook, Inc. to operate within its share of the Internet, practically allows CIA to compile a database of passwords, IP addresses and personal data of its citizens on a massive scale. Is that a concern of national security or not, most governments think not.

Facebook is not becoming big in Russian-speaking countries, they use the local variant vkontakte.ru
 
I hope it lasts long enough for my software (Dolphin Supernova 12) to catch up and enable me to use it properly!
 
I dunno what will happen with Facebook, and since I don't use it, I don't really care. But if I were Zuckerberg, I would sell probably a billion dollars worth of my shares (after an IPO if that is in the plans), so me and my family would never have to worry about money again no matter what happens.
 
I think that they have cornered the market, and thus seem to have long-time survival potential.

Right now it seems that you use the social networking site where all your peers flock, and for me it's Facebook at the moment. Mind you, I'm on there reluctantly because I have friends abroad and they set up project groups on Facebook to organise bachelor parties and such.

I compare it to Skype. I was originally on Google Talk, but since it didn't catch on and only two of my friends used it I switched to Skype which has the biggest user base.

(BTW: Google offers alternatives to Skype, Facebook and Twitter, non have caught on)

Right now Facebook has cornered the market and is investing in innovation, wanting to even include on-line banking in their services. it will be difficult to catch up with this innovation as they will offer more and more complex services.

I'm no IT guy so I have no perspective on possible innovations that could make Facebook obsolete, I tend to look at it from a marketing perspective.

ETA: right now people spend more time on Facebook than on all Google services combined.
This statistic shocked me at first, but then I realised that google is mostly a way to get to a site you want to use, and Facebook is the actual site. still, it's impressive.
 
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dasmiller said:
My guess is that history will repeat itself. Lots and lots of sites are trying to incorporate social networking (from Flickr to Battle.net, sheesh) - soon (and probably already) there will be free apps that work with a variety of social networking sites, and then it will become much less important what stuff you're putting on Facebook vs MySpace etc, just like it's not terribly important to others whether your ISP is SBC, ComCast, AOL, etc.
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That makes sense, I think you're right.

Chatsoftware is halfway there now. You can use one program to communicate through Yahoo, Msn and ICQ - though functionality is trailing. But it's already a major improvement compared to when you needed a different chatprogram for each.
 
BenBurch said:
You cannot corner the market on being the fashionable place to be.
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Exactly. Cities across the country are full of the abandoned hulks of night clubs that were once THE place to be, only to fizzle and die after a short reign because now some other club is THE place to be.

I think what will kill facebook is the inevitable backlash that will occur because at some point facebook will have to make money. Will people tolerate their info being sold to advertisers? Splash screen ads? A paid subscription?
 
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